Sunday, 3 March 2013

Send Into Outer Space - Ross Ashmore in Southgate

“I’m at a gallery opening in Southgate,” said the text.
Gallery opening? In Southgate? You intrigue me, my friend.

Born and bred suburban North Londoner that I am, Southgate
is peculiarly un-redolent of associations, I discover. I had a school friend
who lived there. It’s, er, on the Piccadilly Line by Arnos Grove. After that I
sort of draw a blank.

Well, no longer! This week I have had cause to visit
Southgate twice to see two very different but both excellent exhibitions of
painting at the new gallery Space at Southgate. Opened at the beginning of this
year, Space is a
collaboration between Fionn Wilson, who manages painting, and Gosia Stasiewicz,
photography. It’s housed in a cavernous, rough-round-the-edges (and at the top) space which allows
the works a lot of room to breathe and be seen properly. This is no bijou Mayfair
hobby nor self-consciously gritty Shoreditch basement. This is, as the name
suggests, A Space.

First visit was on Wednesday to catch the last day of Maciej Hoffman's
huge, disturbing oil paintings – great primal howls of black, grey, red and
white. Many of these were suspended from the ceiling, so they pressed in on you
like a particularly distressing maze. Hoffman is a painter from Wroclaw, Poland,
recently relocated to the UK. Hoffman’s
work has something of the Francis Bacon about it, as if you're seeing
something very deep and dark screamed across the canvas. There is an impression of
movement in many of the paintings with violent, sweeping brushstrokes, but not
a sense that it is happening in any ‘real’ place.

Then back again last night for the opening night of Ross Ashmore’s ‘underground paintings’ – thickly daubed 'Expressionist' paintings of
tube stations. Ashmore is on a mission to paint every tube station in London
(and beyond). So far he’s completed all of zones 1-4, and sees the paintings
as a single work-in-progress. He is firm that he won’t be selling any of them,
but it’s not difficult to see why he’s getting offers. The paintings currently
on show at Space are just a fraction of his completed works, currently over 200.

Acton Town (detail) click to enlarge

Each one captures a moment – Arsenal on a match day, with mounted police
overlooking a sea of red and white, The Boston Arms rising high behind Tufnell
Park, Mill Hill East commuters taking the tube out of Narnia while one lucky
person escapes on a bus. In their commonalities without repetition, in their
authenticity without photorealism, in the excessive thickness and tangibility
of paint, these paintings hold the attention for a long time.

St John's Wood

Space also shows work by local artists and outsider artists,
and by photographers, including the work of Gosia Stasiewicz, one of its
founders. It has an exciting calendar of exhibitions planned for upcoming
months and I strongly recommend visiting.